Topic summary
Bicameral parliament
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Bicameralism.
Australia
The bicameral Parliament of Australia consists of two Houses: the lower house is called the House of Representatives and the upper house is named the Senate. As of 31 August 2017, the lower house has 151 members, each elected from single-member constituencies, known as electoral divisions (commonly referred to as "electorates" or "seats") using full-preference instant-runoff voting. This tends to lead to the chamber being dominated by two major groups, the Liberal/NationalCoalition and the Labor Party. The government of the day must achieve the confidence of this House to gain and hold power.